Over 70% of Americans think our government should be focusing on economic issues and unemployment rather than on alleged scandals. Then again, 90% of Americans are in favor of universal background checks for all gun purchases and we saw how that turned out. Which means that if you are turned off and disgusted right now over the Village Idiots and their wall-to-wall coverage of.....a bunch of nothing....you're really gonna be pissed by the time autumn rolls around.

House Republicans can't help themselves. The GOP detests a functioning federal government. On the 8th Day of Creation Ronaldus Maximus spoke the words, "gub'mint is not the solution, gub'mint is the problem".....and Republicans ever since have been trying to wreck the federal government, making it as dysfunctional as possible. And they're finding some success.

It was just about this time one year ago when the AP reported on the successful thwarting by U.S. intelligence of the "new underwear bomb" plot.

The AP reported in May (2012) that the CIA had "thwarted an ambitious plot by al-Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen to destroy a U.S.-bound airliner" using "an upgrade of the underwear bomb that failed to detonate aboard a jetliner over Detroit on Christmas 2009."

When the followers of Sarah Palin's vice-presidential campaign in 2008 came to the realization that a black Democrat had defeated Sister Sarah and the old white guy she was running with.....there was much sadness in faith-based conservative land. Until Palin, no other vice-presidential candidate in modern U.S. history drew larger crowds at campaign rallies than the presidential candidate.

The crowds we witnessed at Palin/McCain rallies were brimming with excitement and hope.....finally, one of their own.....a faith-based, science denying, abortion hating, know-nothing Republican.....had been selected to run for the office one heartbeat away from the presidency.

The most important national political story .....by that I mean the one story about which every American should be informed....is the one main media rarely addresses.

Last year, two non-partisan veteran scholars respected by both sides of the aisle, Norm Ornstein and Thomas Mann, put out a book entitled, It's Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided with the New Politics of Extremism.....

Side note to begin: I realize that all the Very Serious People are all non-stop IRS-something and will be for the forseeable future. As predicted, the Village idiots, pretending they are Creator Gods, have simply declared IRS filing practices to be a "scandal"....and expect it, then, to be so. But alas, it is not. As stated previously, if there were a scandal here, at least one Tea or Patriot group would have been denied (c)(4) status......that didn't happen. Any talk of "targeting" is simply foolishness chasing wishful thinking.

Here's the transcript of Obama's "war on terror" speech yesterday. The president called for closing Guantanamo and possibly rescinding the AUMF...the Authorization to Use Military Force...passed in 2001, which legalized the "endless war" against al-Qaeda that the U.S. military has been waging in 6 or 7 different countries simultaneously over 12 years.

I believe the Obama speech yesterday was meant to counter, and perhaps change the subject away from Scandal-Mania. The usual Village suspects have been speaking in tongues for the last 10 days, caught up in the spirit of emotional exuberance over potential "special counsels" being appointed and/or potential impeachment articles being drawn up in the Tea House.

The United States government tells us that we have been at war for over 11 years now. War, by definition, has always been understood as a nation, or nations, fighting another nation or nations. War has always been understood that way.....until 2001. Now the word war can mean whatever one wants it to mean....and thus, we have the war on terror. The U.S. has been at war against a tactic for eleven+ years now and the prospects for the future are very dim....

Asked at a Senate hearing today how long the war on terrorism will last, Michael Sheehan, the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, answered, “At least 10 to 20 years.”.....

Is there anyone out there who really believes that the Tea Party groups (GOP base groups) were formed beginning in 2009 as "social welfare" groups? Anyone?

I have been paying close attention for....well....too damn long, really....but as I remember it, the Teas began organizing into various and sundry state and local groups immediately after Obama became president. During those glorious and patriotic salad days, Tea groups and members made it clear that they were political opposition groups....in opposition to all of Obama's policies. Those who would try to argue otherwise today have zero credibility.

Our nation's politics have divided us into two opposing camps. The results have not been constructive. Last week we were reminded once again, (as if we needed a reminder) how much damage our bloodless political civil war is doing to our society's unity....our "one nation, indivisible..."

The White House released 100 e-mails on Tuesday all pertaining to how the "talking points" over the Benghazi violence on 9-11-2012 were assembled. Those talking points were then used by Susan Rice and others to address media concerns the week after the violent event. The following excerpt is vital to understanding the alleged scandal of Benghazi....

There are some amazing and baffling things in our natural world. How is it, for example, that schools of fish can move as one? How do birds know how to fly in almost perfect formation?

Humans are also baffling in their behavior. I'm sure you've seen examples of, or read about, mass hysterical behavior....panic induced, rage induced, vengeance induced....hysterical mob behavior, often violent. In our modern refined era, we most often see this phenomenon at highly contested sporting events....often with casualties...but not only at sporting events.

501(c)(4), non-profit, tax exempt, "social welfare" groups do not have to disclose who their donors are. Before the Citizens United ruling in 2010, (c)(4) groups...."laws had barred nonprofits from accepting donations from corporations or unions for political purposes and had mostly restricted 501(c)(4)s to generic "issue" ads that stopped short of calling on people to vote for or against candidates"

But after the Citizens United ruling, as misguided as the ruling was, conservative and Republican voter groups made an open mockery of the label "social welfare."

I agree with some on the left who are suggesting that of the three molehill "scandals" the Village has gone bonkers over in just the last 72 hours.....the IRS "delaying my Tea Party Patriot group's tax-exempt status" will resonate the loudest and the longest.

The GOP base.....Tea Party and Patriot groups plus evangelicals....you see, are being victimized by the "Democrat" Party and the Obama "regime." The IRS faux-scandal fits the winger narrative to a tee. The "real Americans" out there in Bumsmuck, Tennessee and Oxycontin, Kentucky have been under siege from the moment Obama was sworn in, that is, after ACORN stole the election for Obama in 2008, with an assist from the New Black Panthers. It was built-in tyranny from the onset.

The state of Texas is special. And GOP Texas Governor Rick Perry wants everyone to know it.

What's special about Texas? It's a state which actually touts it's similarities with China as a justification for businesses to move out of the state they're in now, and relocate to the Lone Star state. Well.....no in so many words...but the message is clear.

The job of elected Republicans in Washington is to prevent Congress from doing its job. The job of Congress is to represent the overall welfare of the citizenry by passing and implementing needed legislation. The role of elected Republicans in Washington is to prevent Congress from doing so.

If Congress does its job properly, then the Republican "message" that "gub'mint is the problem" doesn't ring true. The goal of the GOP, as led by oath-giving Grover Norquist, is to limit what Congress can do......in the hopes of reducing the size of government so that government can eventually have a drowning accident in a bathtub. A less powerful federal government means lower taxes, or fewer regulations, on our controlling oligarchs....a less powerful government means very wealthy barons don't have to worry so much about cheating and stealing....the federal government threadbare to stop them.

The NRA and a teeny-tiny conservative, gun fetishizing group of Americans....representing perhaps 15% of the nation....stopped universal background checks on all gun purchases from passing into law. The will of the people....and basic sentient-being common sense....were overruled by a tiny minority of extremists threatening to primary any elected official who voted along with the will of the people and basic common sense.

The failure to pass background checks for gun show and online gun purchases is a prime example of what is currently wrong with what we like to call our representative democracy. The cynics are actually correct when they say that your vote every two and four years respectively, carries no weight. When 91% of Americans nationwide agree that all gun purchases should be accompanied with a background check on the purchaser....and a background check amendment fails in the Senate....that's when you know that ours is not a representative democracy.

Here's Appalachian Trail "hiker" Mark Sanford after winning a special election for a U.S. House seat in South Carolina's first district last night....

“Some guy came up to me the other day and said you look a lot like Lazarus,” Sanford told the crowd Tuesday night, referring to the man who, according to the Bible, Christ raised from the dead. “I’ve talked a lot about grace during the course of this campaign,” he said. “Until you experience human grace as a reflection of God’s grace, I don’t think you really get it. And I didn’t get it before.”

Tomorrow, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) will convene yet another committee hearing over Benghazi. Yes, Benghazi. Issa holds to the Dorothy principle which states that if you just close your eyes, click your heels together and say the word Benghazi three times, or three hundred......then President Obama will resign and Hillary Clinton will announce she won't run for president in 2016....or both.

If you are wondering what the hubbub is all about over the tragic attack last September 11th in Benghazi, Libya....you're not alone.

The Israeli military has intervened in the civil war in Syria. There were reports over the weekend of at least two Israeli missile strikes inside Syria. Israel's excuse for striking inside Syria unilaterally is a pre-emptive excuse.....reportedly "game changing" weapons must be stopped from being transferred to the extremist group, Hezbollah. I've seen this movie several times before, so I'm not believing anything offered up in the American press on what has happened over the weekend.

However, there are very important findings by UN investigators in Syria which Reuters reported Sunday evening at approximately 6 PM. It seems odd to me...that while the AB Journal, for example, included the AP "game changing" weapons and the Israeli missile strikes in Syria story in this morning's edition.....nothing was mentioned from the Reuters report.

I couple of weeks ago I mentioned that President Obama's recent budget offer to cut Social Security benefits as part of some clownish Grand Bargain basically marked the end of his presidency. If Republicans didn't have 41 votes in the Senate and if the House was not hopelessly infected with Tea Party Derangement Disease.....then perhaps Obama could help to do something meaningful in his second term....but no such luck.

1) Studies have demonstrated that having a gun in your home makes you less safe.

"...people who keep a gun in their home are almost twice as likely to die in a gun-related homicide,"....."The risk of killing oneself using a gun was almost 17 times greater for persons who live in a home where there is a gun, compared to those in homes without guns."

If you are a criminal with a gun in Arizona....and you are arrested and sent to jail for committing a crime with that gun....that gun is seized by law enforcement. But thanks to a 2012 Arizona law signed by Governor Jan Brewer, a proud Big Gub'Mint opponent, the seized gun MUST be put back into circulation by selling it to an authorized dealer. This Arizona law, signed April 4, 2012 by Ms. Brewer prohibits the destruction of the seized gun.

The bill signed into law in 2012 is entitled, "Firearms Destruction Prevention Act". No kidding, that's the title. Moreover, the bill to save confiscated guns from destruction was written and lobbied by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)....you may have heard of them. A few months before passage....